Minecraft: The Return

Many moons ago, a young adventurer journeyed through a strange land, punching trees, and dying in a variety of embarrassing ways. Creepers, mostly, as I recall. Some of those adventures were recorded for posterity, and they were kind of popular, at least in comparison to most of what I do here. Took me rather by surprise! Alas, health and other distractions took their toll, and new episodes became rare, and then stopped forever.

Until now. Circumstances have conspired, and the stars have aligned, and once again I am overcome with the desire to delve too deep and too greedily into the land of Minecraft, and I’m hoping you’ll come along for the adventure!!

Since I last played, Minecraft has released properly, and had vast amounts of extra content added to it. Tameable wolves and ocelots! An experience system. The End, and the sinister Endermen. Witches! But beyond that, Minecraft modding has exploded, tempting me with delicious homegrown concoctions, and my deep-seated need to attempt to stack as many mods together as possible has kicked in, for good or ill.

There are quite a number of pre-built mod-compilations out there, the most popular of which seems to be Feed the Beast. But I tend to disagree with compilation’s mod choices, and I’ve also found that going through the process of cajoling other people’s mods into playing nicely together is often a solid foundation in learning how to mod a game myself.

As I’m starting from a base of Minecraft’s current version, 1.5.1, not every mod I’m interested in has been upgraded to function with it yet. I could use an earlier Minecraft version, but I figure I have plenty of mods to work with for now, and can always add more in later when they get updated.

I’ve already got quite a stack of mods working together. I’ll list them with descriptions and links in a later post. Largely, I seek extra challenges, beasts, and lands to explore, or interesting new game systems. As I’m not really much of a builder, as anyone who remembers my ugly but practical base at Hawk Mountain will attest, I’m leaving the range of mods which add pipes and new blocks and various sciencey goodness alone for now. I might add some in later if architectural inspiration strikes. I’m also avoiding mods which seem to simply add more powerful gear or otherwise make the game easier without also providing great threats.

Perhaps you can help me in my search. What are your favourite Minecraft mods?

So, when does this show hit the blocky road? I’m waiting on one particular mod to be updated, which should be in the next few days. Thaumcraft is a huge mod bringing magic and wonder to Minecraft. Because it adds special trees, ore, and aura nodes that are vital to its magic system, I should probably have it installed when I generate the world, rather than adding it in later. I could try to add it later, but there’s a chance that could go horribly wrong, so going to play it safe, considering that breaking my gameworld would be an ignominious end to a video series.

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